Dive Summary:
- This year's National Student Survey ranked the Open University, the largest online learning institution in the U.K., highest in student satisfaction, indicating that traditional campus-based education may be in decline.
- While educators understand the merits of the campus experience and face-to-face teaching, the rising costs of traditional learning and the convenience of online education expose the evolving landscape of higher education.
- Peter Scott, director of the Knowledge Media Institute at the Open University, argues that it's premature to declare campuses on their way out as they provide valuable space for academics to work together; however, he believes students do not need a traditional campus to learn and educators should start to invest in new physical spaces to suit the increasingly popular virtual spaces available.
From the article:
"... Allison Littlejohn, director of Glasgow Caledonian University's Caledonian Academy and professor of learning technology:
'The future is people having more control over their own learning. That might include certified education – education as we know it and a three or four year degree. But there will be a much wider selection of formal education and non-formal learning that people take forward themselves. We need to better prepare learners in the UK to have the confidence and skills and abilities to set their own goals and understand how they might go about achieving those goals because there is going to be much more fluidity in the future about how we set our careers and direction.' ..."